Circles
by hen3ry
Summary: They're moving in circles now, and Ryan can't decide if he wants to get out. RyanEric


He can remember the first time with Eric. It was two days before what he'll later term 'the incident' with the IRS agent's key gun. They're leaving work at the same time, Eric turned and asked if he wanted to go for a drink, and he said yes without really thinking about it. 

Ryan doesn't drink, so he's still totally in control of himself when he drives Eric home, and Eric decides whatever they're doing is better accomplished without pants. He doesn't argue though. He knows this could be his only chance. Which is slightly pathetic, when he thinks about it.

It's hard to worry about stuff like that when Eric (or anyone for that matter) is pulling your boxers down with their teeth, even when you're still in a car, parked outside their house.

His hands stayed on the wheel the whole time. When he's done, Eric comes up for a kiss, and for a second he thinks they've done this in slightly the wrong order. The thought doesn't last long though, because Eric's mouth is warm, and wet, and tastes like rum and coke and something else Ryan can't quite identify. (A split second later he realises that's probably _him_, and he pushes the thought out of his mind. Ryan's never been a huge fan of bodily fluids.)

Eric gets out of the car and stumbles up to his door. He should probably be helping him with his keys, but his pants are still around his knees and he's not sure he can stand. So he just waits by the roadside for ten minutes until Eric finally makes it inside. It's another five minutes before he remembers to start the car.

The next day, he's in the field, and he doesn't see Eric all shift. And the next day, there's the key gun, and the IRS, and it's awkward from there on in.

The second time is about six weeks later, when everything's been tense since the first time, and after shift Ryan snaps and turns to Eric to try and break the impass when he finds himself pushed against a row of lockers.

The vents are pressing into his back, rubbing against his spine, and Eric's kissing him so hard he can't breathe. There are calloused fingers roughly pulling at his belt, and it's happening fast enough that his mind doesn't have a chance to catch up with what's going on.

Eric turns him around, and his hands are pinned to the lockers above his shoulders and it's fast and hard and five minutes later he's alone again.

After that, it settles into some kind of routine. Antagonistic and repetitive. And it's pretty unchanging, until three days before Marisol dies, and Eric tells him he loves him.

For a few days, Ryan tells himself that everything's alright, until Riaz gets released to Brazilian custody, and Eric shows up saying he's going to Rio to find him, wanting goodbye sex. And Ryan tells him to stop being an idiot and fuck off.

They fight, and Eric leaves, and Ryan's so pissed off he goes out, finds a bar. Ryan doesn't drink, because he doesn't like loosing control. And Ryan never makes the first move, because he doesn't want to risk being rejected.

But tonight, Ryan downs four mojitos in twenty minutes, and he's drunk enough that by the time Dan Cooper appears next to him and buys him a drink to apologise for leaking the information to the feds, the sensible part of his brain is well and truly silenced. Which is why the next day he wakes up in Dan's bed, and the pair of them make a promise to never mention the incident again.

* * *

Eric gets back from Rio and apologises for everything, and reassures Ryan he really does love him. Which Ryan believes for a few days, until Eric shows up dishevelled and smelling like _Lovely_ and another cycle begins. This time of proclamations of love, and infidelity and forgiveness. And Ryan tells himself he's an idiot for believing him everytime.

But Eric promises he wants to be with him. And then he sleeps with someone else, and the whole thing starts over again. He's given him more last chances then he can remember, and he keeps reminding himself he doesn't need this in his life.

The final straw is when Eric gets unreasonably jealous of Doyle hanging around to shoot his film, and as much as admits he expects a double standard of fidelity. Ryan doesn't know whether it's a Catholic thing, or a Russian thing, or a Cuban thing, but apparantly Eric can fuck all of Miami, wheras Ryan can't even look at someone without Eric loosing it.

On New Year's Eve, Eric dissappears again. Alexx give Ryan a sympathetic look and tells him he has the patience of a saint. Valera drags him to a club and tries to get him drunk, but he resists because Dan's there too and he definitely doesn't want a repeat of that.

He bumps into Doyle at the club, and he apologieses for asking Ryan to over-luminol the sweatshirt, and he's drunk, and Ryan figures if he's going to be hung anyway, he may as well commit the crime. So at midnight, Ryan pulls him in for a kiss, and even though the younger man mutters something about 'journalistic integrity' under his voice, he doesn't resist.

* * *

He leaves Doyle's house early the next morning, before he wakes up, and walks home. Eric shows up a few hours later, to 'talk', and Ryan answers the door shirtless, the ten fingertip-shaped bruises around his waist in sharp contrast to his pale skin.

Eric stands in the doorway for a moment, before he turns and leaves.

Half an hour later, Ryan gets a message on his answering machine, but he deletes it before it's even halfway through.


End file.
